[Nerdaleptic]

And the Bolt is way more fun to drive!

 

[Bolt Action]

 

[TheLight75]

I’m pretty happy with my ICE->EV transition. I sold my ICEV (VW Tiguan) last week for $800 more than I paid for it 16 months ago (after I put 26k miles on it!). I then prepaid the full lease on a ‘22 EUV Premier and still had a few thou left over to put away. Anticipating a savings of $300/month, I will save almost $11k over the lease term not having to gas up & do ICEV maintenance.

It was a no brainer for me.

 

[2020 Bolter]

In almost three years of owning my bolt i have 65000 miles on it. My other cars are paid for. If I tally the cost of electricity for the bolt I have spent around $2000. The Ridgeline would have cost nearly $12000 in gas. That kind of ROI is why I bought the Bolt.

I am 7 years of rooftop solar only...it's awesome.

 

[TotaledJetta]

I had to fill up my wife 2006 Acura. A mere $83.00. Yikes! I am much happier filling my Bolt even at California's high electricity costs. Anyway at almost $7.00 per gallon of premium, I am glad that I am driving a Bolt and not my 2003 Jetta. It got about 20 mpg and now that would be $7 per 20 miles or 35 cents per mile. If you drove far at that rate it would add up. I recently talked to a guy who made a living transporting horses. He had a fine looking pickup and had just put $210 into the tank.
If ICE drivers want to drive their gas guzzlers and make arguments why it is better, I can't worry about that. Eventually economics will accelerate the conversion to electrics.

 

[Walter's Dad]

Brilliant!

Eventually economics will accelerate the conversion to electrics.

 

[finch4ever]

What concernes me is not the battery or the motor but rather the surrounding electronics in EV cars. I work as a tools repair guy and every day I look at failed bms inside tools battery packs. More often then not the lithium cells are fine but bms fails. Furthermore these battery packs are not serviceable. the bms inside these packs are suicidal bms wich mean when you disconnect cells, the bms shuts down and cannot be reactivated (and it is intentional from the manufacturers). You can't buy a new bms from the manufacturer. The 150$ pack is not usable anymore.

The reparability of todays car, EV's and ICE's, is getting harder to service yourself and many times the electronic modules will come in a big assembly and a big price. For example If I want to change only the on/off trigger inside a milwaukee brushless drill it comes as an assembly with the whole electronic module and the motor coil as well, these parts are not available separately. Of course the price is higher then buying a new drill.

For ICE cars it is going in that direction as electronics are more and more present. But you can still service the common and basic parts yourself like the alternator, gas pump etc etc. Independent repair shops can easily do the work for probably cheaper then the dealer. EV's on the other hand appart from the brake pads and rotors there is not much we as users can repair because of the complexity and those independent shops struggles when it comes to repair EV's. The dealer is almost the only place so imagine the price of parts and labor.

My point is, yes you save on gas and maintenance cost but in the long run will you save if for some reason the bms or other electronic module fails. I hope my bolt will last long and hope the parts are reliable and that GM didn't cheap on the bms because I would like to keep it for a long time. That is why I took an 7 years unlimited miles extended warranty to at least cover the duration the the car loan

 

[p7wang]

What concernes me is not the battery or the motor but rather the surrounding electronics in EV cars. I work as a tools repair guy and every day I look at failed bms inside tools battery packs. More often then not the lithium cells are fine but bms fails. Furthermore these battery packs are not serviceable. the bms inside these packs are suicidal bms wich mean when you disconnect cells, the bms shuts down and cannot be reactivated (and it is intentional from the manufacturers). You can't buy a new bms from the manufacturer. The 150$ pack is not usable anymore.

The reparability of todays car, EV's and ICE's, is getting harder to service yourself and many times the electronic modules will come in a big assembly and a big price. For example If I want to change only the on/off trigger inside a milwaukee brushless drill it comes as an assembly with the whole electronic module and the motor coil as well, these parts are not available separately. Of course the price is higher then buying a new drill.

For ICE cars it is going in that direction as electronics are more and more present. But you can still service the common and basic parts yourself like the alternator, gas pump etc etc. Independent repair shops can easily do the work for probably cheaper then the dealer. EV's on the other hand appart from the brake pads and rotors there is not much we as users can repair because of the complexity and those independent shops struggles when it comes to repair EV's. The dealer is almost the only place so imagine the price of parts and labor.

My point is, yes you save on gas and maintenance cost but in the long run will you save if for some reason the bms or other electronic module fails. I hope my bolt will last long and hope the parts are reliable and that GM didn't cheap on the bms because I would like to keep it for a long time. That is why I took an 7 years unlimited miles extended warranty to at least cover the duration the the car loan

Of course, cost for replacement could be low enough or worthwhile, like non-removable rechargeable batteries in phones and now flashlights. (I just bought a pair of 1000 lumen headlights vs buying battery operated lower intensity types then buying rechargeable batteries for it).

 

[Sean Nelson]

For ICE cars it is going in that direction as electronics are more and more present. But you can still service the common and basic parts yourself like the alternator, gas pump etc etc. Independent repair shops can easily do the work for probably cheaper then the dealer. EV's on the other hand appart from the brake pads and rotors there is not much we as users can repair because of the complexity and those independent shops struggles when it comes to repair EV's. The dealer is almost the only place so imagine the price of parts and labor.

Unlike Tesla, Bolt owners have fairly easy access to parts via places like GM Parts Direct. Or even through dealer parts departments. And I don't really think that EVs are all that much more difficult to service - even the dealer service departments are basically just part swappers. Of course you need to take precautions if you're working around the high voltage components, but the Master Service Disconnect beneath the rear seat solves most of that issue. And high voltage insulating gloves are just another tool that you need.

So far, aside from the battery recall and software glitches, most of the problems Bolt owners seem to be having are with axle nuts, rack and pinion steering units, 12V batteries dying, CV joint play, and the like. Nothing particular to EVs about dealing with those.

Yes, there have been some electronics issues like the need to replace infotainment units. But again those are just part swaps. Aside from individual battery cell problems, the BMS in the high voltage batteries seems to have been pretty problem-free.

The biggest issue I see is that these cars are heavily software-dependent, and software updates are pretty inaccessible to all but the most dedicated DIY-ers.

 

[finch4ever]

Yes the bolt has been fairly reliable so far. My point is basically like you say. Since more parts are complex electronic parts it is less reparable then mechanical parts and you need to swap which often are assembly parts at high price. Also you probably have to reprogram the installed parts which we don't really have access to and can be difficult for independent shop too.

and we didn't talked about other newer and more modern EV's. I compare tesla to apple. the reparability and parts availability is a joke and other cell phone companies are moving more and more towards the apple mentality. Many are against the right to repair. The EV era is a nice way for companies to enforce this anti repair mentality

 

[MisterJJ]

the bms shuts down and cannot be reactivated (and it is intentional from the manufacturers).

I worked many years for a company designing and building rechargeable packs for medical and industrial purposes. I never heard of a BMS that would intentionally not reactivate, but I suppose it is possible. When assembling multi-cell packs, the slow increase and fluctuation in voltage will sometime make the BMS go nuts. There's a few different ways this problem is dealt with. Some of the ways are:
A jumper is removed after all cells are attached.
A jumper wire is cut after all cells are attached.
A jumper wire or fuse is added after all cells are attached.
Cell connections are made in a specific order.
Communication wire is forced high or low to initiate reboot of BMS.
Test points on PCA are jumpered or driven high or low to reboot BMS.
Sometime it's just some known spot on the PCA that is driven high or low to reboot BMS.

Best bet to fix these packs is to find the BMS chip and check the datasheet for how to reset it, which is usually just a pin on the chip driven high or low. The Ryobi pack I took apart had a pad on the PCA marked reset. It brought it back to life but the cells were toast and too much work to replace.

 

[finch4ever]

skip to around 15min but basically some bms are not resettable. Makita are doing the same if for some reason the voltage gets below the threshold the bms chip goes into permanent shut down

oh and as for ryobi yes these bms I have heard they can be reset.

 

[MichBolt]

skip to around 15min but basically some bms are not resettable. Makita are doing the same if for some reason the voltage gets below the threshold the bms chip goes into permanent shut down

oh and as for ryobi yes these bms I have heard they can be reset.

The Bolt's battery pack, even though it's not as modular as Ultium, is still designed to be able to replace individual module sections. Not every Bolt battery repair requires replacing the entire battery assembly. That implies the BMS isn't tied to the cells in a way that is suicidal if a cell module fails.

 

[finch4ever]

The Bolt's battery pack, even though it's not as modular as Ultium, is still designed to be able to replace individual module sections. Not every Bolt battery repair requires replacing the entire battery assembly. That implies the BMS isn't tied to the cells in a way that is suicidal if a cell module fails.

We are deviating a little bit probably by my fault. I was not saying the bolts bms is like what I am seeing in my tools bms. It was an example I was shooting in the air for general reparability and my fear of more and more electronic parts making it more difficult repairs. But of course after saying all this the bolt's bms is still not serviceable by you or me not just because of the complexity of the battery pack but also because it will need reprograming with special computer and software that is probably dealer exclusive

 

[just frank]

It is clear that RC tool manufacturers are using the Gillette credo: Give the razor away for free, and make all your money back on blades.

The problem is the 'name brand' or OEM packs are overpriced by about 3x to make this economics work. And ofc, I can buy pin-compatible packs for all the name brands from China for a fair price. And how will the tool makers defend themselves?

Case in point: I only buy lithium tools without the included packs (usually for half the MSRP), and then only put chinese packs on them. And never had a problem. After all, the cells the OEM packs have come from china anyway, IMO the only US part in the $$$ packs is the sticker on the outside.

If the Bolt was using a pack that cost 3x on a $/kWh basis than an identical pack from China (or, um, Korea), ofc there would be a booming business of swapping out those packs, and GM would have some fancy encypted handshake that would force us to use the GM OEM pack.

But they're not.

 

[enslay]

I'm OK with a 3rd party mechanic repairing EV batteries as long as they have equipment and training to do it. No way in heck should a typical DIY person be able to even touch an EV battery!

But if you're talking about power tool or laptop battery packs... well, those probably won't kill a careless person who makes a mistake. Those should be repairable or use a standard form factor.

 

[MisterJJ]

And ofc, I can buy pin-compatible packs for all the name brands from China for a fair price. And how will the tool makers defend themselves?

FYI, the build quality is considerably different. The Ryobi pack had good internal impact protection and quality welds compared to the China pack I took apart. So I try to be a lot more careful with the China pack. Also, the China pack stays on full for a very long time and then drops quickly down to low.

 

[finch4ever]

I have seen china packs burned into flames the quality is not there at all. the cells are no good brand quality and you can say just by the weight of it. they are also over spec by a lot.

@just frank .The handshake between battery and tools is already begun with the new generation of tools. And I suspect it is to prevent us from using other battery pack or adaptors. My guess, It will be a thing in the future for pretty much everything including car parts. Look at that popular one wheel skateboard (can't remember the name) the last generation is using handshake between battery and bms so you can't install aftermarket

 

[enslay]

The handshake between battery and tools is already begun with the new generation of tools. And I suspect it is to prevent us from using other battery pack or adaptors. My guess, It will be a thing in the future for pretty much everything including car parts. Look at that popular one wheel skateboard (can't remember the name) the last generation is using handshake between battery and bms so you can't install aftermarket

I think this will change in the distant future. Just need the right political atmosphere. We can't keep throwing stuff out! It's a waste of resources and bad for the environment.

 

[p7wang]

Let's get back on topic, the "straw" man would prefer anything than horses for transportation.